Franciscan files reveal pervasive culture

Associated Press

Updated
9:10 pm CDT, Friday, May 25, 2012

This undated image provided by State of California Department of Justice shows former priest and convicted sex offender, Robert Van Handel, who was molested as a student at St Anthony's seminary school and then returned there as a priest where he molested boys in the choir.

This undated image provided by State of California Department of Justice shows former priest and convicted sex offender, Robert Van Handel, who was molested as a student at St Anthony's seminary school and then

This undated image provided by State of California Department of Justice shows former priest and convicted sex offender, Robert Van Handel, who was molested as a student at St Anthony's seminary school and then returned there as a priest where he molested boys in the choir.

This undated image provided by State of California Department of Justice shows former priest and convicted sex offender, Robert Van Handel, who was molested as a student at St Anthony's seminary school and then

LOS ANGELES — Robert Van Handel says he was a 15-year-old seminarian at St. Anthony's, a prestigious Franciscan boarding school, when a priest slipped into the infirmary where he was recovering from a fever and began to molest him. The priest told him it would help draw out the fever.

More than a decade later, Van Handel himself was molesting children when he was a Franciscan priest at the same Santa Barbara boarding school. Van Handel formed a boys' choir for local children and chose his victims from among its ranks for eight years.

The sexual abuse at St. Anthony's, including Van Handel's own account of his crimes, is included in more than 4,000 pages from the confidential files of nine Franciscan religious brothers accused of abuse.

The internal files, coupled with an additional 4,000 pages of sworn testimony obtained by the Associated Press, are the largest release of a religious order's files to date and paint one of the fullest pictures yet of a pervasive culture of abuse that affected generations of students at the seminary dedicated to training future Franciscans.

The religious order settled for $28 million in 2006 with plaintiffs who alleged abuse by the nine Franciscans, but Van Handel and other defendants fought the release of their private files for six years in a legal battle that reached the California Supreme Court.

Eighteen other Franciscans have been accused of sexual abuse or named in lawsuits, many of them also from St. Anthony's, but their documents remain private, plaintiff attorney Tim Hale said Wednesday at a Santa Barbara news conference.

The documents show how abuse in a religious order can be closely tied to the formation of children who grow up to become brothers and priests, said Terence McKiernan, founder of BishopAccountability.org, which posted the Franciscan files online Wednesday.

“The generational phenomenon of abuse is really, really clear in these documents, and it's a heartbreaking story,” he said.

Brian Brosnahan, an attorney representing the Franciscans, said the files don't show that the Franciscans knew of the abuse. The religious order was quicker than most to address complaints and launched an investigation into St. Anthony's in 1992, he aid.